Today, MyHeritage released the Record Matching technology feature with a press release and a blog post at Introducing Record Matching. Again, some of my ancestral families are featured in the examples. I will write more about this feature in the coming week.
The press release today from MyHeritage:
MyHeritage releases breakthrough Record Matching technology for family history
Discoveries
made easy: Millions of MyHeritage users to automatically receive
relevant newspaper clippings and historical records, adding color to
their family history
PROVO, Utah & LONDON & TEL AVIV, Israel – September 19, 2012: MyHeritage,
the world’s largest family network, today announced the release of
Record Matching, an innovative new technology set to change the face of
the family history market. Record Matching will help millions of
families learn more about their past by automatically discovering
relevant historical records and newspaper articles dating back 300
years.
Record
Matching is the next generation of family history exploration. It saves
time by automating online research for users’ family trees, breaking
through “brick walls” for dedicated genealogists, and giving beginners a
significant boost with their family tree research. It works by
comparing more than one billion profiles in family trees created by
MyHeritage users to more than four billion historical records, to find
relevant matches. It’s the only service of its kind to automatically
research newspaper articles, books and other free text content through
semantic analysis, to find articles that can shed light on the actual
lives, personalities and achievements of one’s ancestors. The Internet
has helped bring family history to mainstream audiences, by allowing
some of the research traditionally done in libraries and archives to be
done online. Record Matching now simplifies online research by conducting it automatically.
Supporting
38 languages, MyHeritage has become the trusted home on the web for
families worldwide wishing to explore their family history, share
memories and stay connected. In addition to its expertise on
collaborative family tree building, over the past year MyHeritage has
positioned itself as a leading provider of historical records. Record
Matching is an add-on feature for SuperSearch, the search engine for
historical records successfully released by MyHeritage in June 2012.
MyHeritage
Founder and CEO, Gilad Japhet, said: “Record Matching is a family
history discovery maker and time saver, designed to delight both
dedicated family historians and people with a casual interest in their
ancestry. Over the past year we’ve expanded our consumer offering by
complementing our social family tree network with a substantial amount
of historical content. Record Matching now ties these two assets
together, adding exciting new value for our users and giving us a unique
edge in the family history market. It’s a significant step towards
realizing our goal of bringing family history to the masses.”
Record
Matching utilizes the current global pool of more than four billion
records on MyHeritage, including strong collections in the USA, UK,
Ireland, Australia and Canada, with more content being added daily for
additional countries. Users can receive birth, marriage and divorce
documents, gravestone photos, death, burial and census information,
military, immigration and other types of records in their Record
Matches. More information about the lives of relatives and ancestors can
be revealed in Record Matches from the world’s largest historical
newspaper collection licensed to MyHeritage (currently about 120 million
pages dating back to the 18th century), books and other free text
materials. Record Matches also cover the 1930 and 1940 US census records
and the content from MyHeritage-owned family history websites, WorldVitalRecords and FamilyLink.
Developed
in-house by MyHeritage engineers and family history experts, Record
Matching technology is designed to mimic the work of a family historian
as much as possible, finding matches that a human would consider
plausible, and ruling out matches that
a researcher would consider as incorrect. Based on multiple
genealogical algorithms that match information in the record (names,
dates, facts, relationships, etc) to the information in the family tree,
semantic analysis, statistical engines and a false positive prevention
sub-system, Record Matching provides a high degree of accuracy without
sacrificing flexibility. Through its use of massive computational
resources and systematic approach of comparing every person to every
record, Record Matching makes discoveries that many users would not have
the time or luck to find on their own.
Record
Matching technology augments MyHeritage’s flagship Smart Matching™
technology that compares family trees to other family trees. The two
technologies work together in a cycle that constantly pushes forward the
users' knowledge of their family history. MyHeritage users will receive
weekly email updates of their new Record Matches. On the MyHeritage.com
website, all Record Matches found are consolidated in one interactive
report, where users can conveniently review, filter, sort, confirm and
reject their matches.
Record
Matching has flexible phonetic and multilingual capabilities when
researching names, covering many possible synonyms, different spellings
and international variations. Record Matches have an individual
confidence score and can be viewed by person or by data collection.
Additional features, such as saving information from Record Matches into
online family trees, creating references and source citations and
displaying real-time matches whenever a new person is added into the
tree, will be added before the end of 2012.
As
of today, Record Matching will run periodically for every user who has a
family tree on MyHeritage. Record Matches found will be displayed for
free as a shortened extract. For full access to the historical records
delivered by Record Matches, MyHeritage offers affordable data
subscription plans and pay-as-you-go credits which are also good for use
on SuperSearch, the MyHeritage search engine for historical records. In
complimentary collections under license, such as Ellis Island and
Find-A-Grave, MyHeritage users will enjoy full access to the Record
Matches for free. Family tree enthusiasts interested in receiving Record
Matches are welcome to sign up for free at MyHeritage, import their family tree or build a new one using the site’s friendly tools, and receive their matches in less than 24 hours.
About MyHeritage
MyHeritage
is the most popular family network on the web. On MyHeritage, millions
of families around the world enjoy a private and free place to explore
their history and share family memories. Pioneers in making family
history a collaborative experience for the entire family, MyHeritage
empowers its users with innovative social tools and a massive library of
historical content. The site is available in 38 languages. The company
is backed by Accel Partners and Index Ventures. For more information
visit www.myheritage.com.
Press Contact
Caroline Cohen, PR Manager for MyHeritage
Phone: +44 2081231152 Email: caroline@myheritage.com
Phone: +44 2081231152 Email: caroline@myheritage.com
Disclosure: I have a complimentary subscription to both MyHeritage.com and WorldVitalRecords.com courtesy of MyHeritage, for which I am grateful. However, this does not influence my objective opinions in reviews of these websites and their products.
The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/09/myheritage-releases-record-matching.html
No comments:
Post a Comment